


i slept in an emerald box

by englishsummerrain



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Couple Items, M/M, Mutual Pining, zhong chenle is bad at giving gifts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28216110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishsummerrain/pseuds/englishsummerrain
Summary: Chenle learns to give. Jisung learns to take.
Relationships: Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le, Zhong Chen Le/Other(s)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 300
Collections: NCTV Secret Santa 2020





	i slept in an emerald box

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TRASHCAKE](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TRASHCAKE/gifts).



> hi riley! u dont know me but i did get a good laugh when i saw it was you i was supposed to gift this to. sorry for being so fussy about the prompts and then.. writing off the prompts anyway.... alas my brain went where it wanted. i wanted to include more of skz (felix especially) but just.. couldn't work out where to TT____TT i hope this is still okay for you <3
> 
> (i wrote this before chenle showed his puppy.. fml)

Jealousy is an ugly thing. Jisung knows this well.

Green eyed, stinging. It grips at his heart like a snake with its fangs sunk in, and no matter how hard he tries he can’t shake it off. Coils wrapped around him, squeezing tight as he stares across the room.

On the couch opposite Chenle taps at the screen of his phone, the world blurring away around him. He shakes his head to try to get his hair out of his eyes and Jisung jerks away as if burned, averting his gaze until he’s sure Chenle isn’t paying attention.

Jisung hates that he’s like this. It’s unbecoming of him — unbecoming especially of a SM idol. He has no right to be jealous. He has people who love him, he has all his hyungs. He had a concert a few weeks ago, and in the dressing room Jeno pinched his cheeks and told him how proud of him he was. He has everything he should want. There is no need for greed.

And yet Jisung has _wanted_ for so fucking long it feels it’s all he is, sometimes.

The glow of the television is the shade of a neon fish tank and Chenle’s cheeks look hollow — ridges of cheekbones standing out like the edge of a knife as he smiles to himself.

The problem with Jisung is that he has always needed too much. He’s always felt too much, inexperienced in burying the parts of him that might hurt were they exposed to the light.

How does he learn that, anyway? Who does he ask? Most of them would say Jaemin seems to have turned it into an art, but even Jisung has seen him cry.

Heard him. Sobbing into the pillows in the soft hours of the night, when Jisung had woken up on the top bunk needing to use the bathroom, unable to get down until Jaemin’s tears had turned into sniffles and Jisung had felt safe enough to fake waking up again.

The problem with Jisung is all he wants to do is give. And he will give and give until he realises, belatedly, that he has nothing left inside.

Minghao is not the first crush Chenle has had, but he is maybe the most realised one. The first perfect intersection of Jisung’s absolute knowledge that he was deeply in love with Chenle, and his realisation of the fact it was not returned. A knife in the side, twisting every time Chenle laughed at his phone. Jealousy is so unbecoming of him, and yet it feels like all he is these days.

Chenle crushes easily, but he doesn't crush deeply. Not really.

Taeyong was the first — just hero worship. The result of a fifteen year old who saw the coolest boy he’d ever met and didn’t know how to project his feelings.

Renjun was misguided. Chenle realising he was attracted to boys — a false hope for Jisung, in a way. Before Renjun, Jisung had told himself he had no chance, his crush shallow like a half dug grave. After Renjun — after Chenle lying on Jisung’s bed like a sixteen year old schoolgirl, cooing about how handsome he was — Jisung had dug his the hole six foot deep and buried himself.

But Renjun’s heart belonged to someone else, and when Donghyuck returned from America and kissed Renjun in the dorm kitchen, Chenle had begun to let go. They’d filmed for Chenji’s This and That and they’d sat together afterwards on the roof of the SM building, rain clouds bruising the horizon, Chenle’s hair the colour of fresh tangerines.

“It feels a little stupid looking back,” Chenle had said. He picked an invisible thread from the sleeve of his shirt and sniffed, flicking it over the edge.

“You can’t control your feelings,” Jisung had said, even as he so desperately wanted Chenle to kiss him. Chenle had turned to him and given him a thin smile, wind tousling his hair.

They’d dropped the conversation then and there, and the iron bands around Jisung’s lungs had loosened for a while.

Only for a while. Never for too long.

Felix was next. A flash in the pan — the rush of instant connection that mellowed over time. Jisung had had to sit through hours and hours of tales about how many freckles were on his face, hours more of Chenle playing Stray Kids songs off his phone every time they shared a car ride. At one point he’d started choreographing a dance to Levanter — just for Chenle — but had realised the futility of it all when Chenle had moved on.

That’s what Chenle did. He moved on. He never stayed in one place for too long. Just as Jisung began to cope — just as he swallowed the bitterness he felt for these people who had never wronged him — Chenle would have someone else in his eyes, and everything would repeat again.

“What do you think?” Chenle says. He holds his phone under Jisung’s nose and Jisung blinks, reaching up to push it far away enough from his face that he can actually read it.

“What do I think of what?” Jisung asks, staring at the 70k won wine glass set on the screen.

“Do you think Minghao-hyung would approve? Do you think it fits my… you know. My whole set up?”

Jisung looks up at Chenle, who’s staring at him expectantly. They’re sitting in his room on opposite sides of the table that’s the single furnishing apart from his bed. There’s a bottle of wine on the floor. Chenle’s laptop is on the charger, and the rest of the floor is covered in clothes. If Jisung had to guess he’d say most of them are dirty.

“Why don’t you ask him?” Jisung says. “Why would I know?”

He cringes, internally, at how harsh it sounds. His heart feels scrubbed out and raw, cleaned of all the bloody residue that’s resultant of being in love with your best friend for five years. He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this.

Chenle’s eyes aren’t on Jisung — he’s staring at the screen, flicking back to another tab to show a different set of glasses. They all look the same to Jisung — and he doesn’t care, anyway.

“You know me better than he does,” Chenle says, pursing his lips.

The words are like him pulling back an arrow and letting loose, piercing straight through Jisung’s chest.

“Yeah,” Jisung says. He unconsciously touches his sternum, but finds no fletching — just the same blood and bone. No wound. “I guess I do. I don’t know, though.”

Chenle sets his phone down on the table and Jisung cringes, waiting for the inevitable probing question. The inevitably of having to explain himself, lie and cover up all his vulnerabilities. Batten the hatches. Wait for the storm to pass.

It never comes. Chenle doesn’t say anything. He just reaches out and takes Jisung’s hand in his own, and when Jisung looks up Chenle is frowning.

It reminds him of Sapporo, actually. Sitting in Jisung’s room the night after the festival, when Renjun, Jaemin and Jeno had gone out for drinks together, leaving the two of them alone. Jisung eating cup ramen, Chenle spread out on Jeno’s bed. Chenle sits up, sudden, and sighs, his shoulders deflating.

“What do you think I should get Renjun for his birthday?”

It was Jisung’s birthday four days ago. Chenle had bought him a flannel shirt. It’s packed in Jisung’s bag right now, under his snow jacket and gloves. Sentimentality tucked inside its front pocket. Jisung treasures everything Chenle gives him — even this. Even these moments.

“He was talking about needing a new wallet,” Jisung offers. He’d already bought Renjun his gift — a jacket he’d pointed out while they were shopping in Dongdaemun last month. He thinks Jeno and Jaemin are pooling together to get him something, though he’s not sure.

“Yeah?” Chenle asks. He flops back down and starfishes out. “I don’t know. I feel like whatever I give him won’t be good enough, you know?”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate whatever you buy,” Jisung says. He slurps his noodles a little too fast and hisses at the water spraying across his tongue.

Chenle is bad at giving gifts. Always customary, always just on the right side of practical. He’s bad at the sentimental things too — cracks a joke before it gets too serious. Jisung looks up at him, here — staring at the ceiling, honey blonde hair spread out around his head — and he knows what’s coming.

“But I want to get him something good.”

The inevitable. The reminder that Chenle cares because he is in love with Renjun. The reminder that Jisung is more of an afterthought than anything else — something so comfortable Chenle doesn’t have to think about it.

“I liked your gift,” Jisung points out. “I’m sure Renjun will like whatever you get him too.”

“You don’t count,” Chenle says, and it stings. Salt in the wound, and Jisung recoils a little, lucky that Chenle isn’t watching him. “I know how to buy things for you. Renjun is just an enigma.”

Renjun isn’t an enigma. Renjun acts like an enigma, but Chenle of all people should see that Renjun is transparent — that he’s easy. Sentimental, love sick boy. Anything Chenle gets him will be treasured.

“Get him the wallet,” Jisung says. “He’ll like it. I promise.”

He wonders if Chenle has ever struggled when it comes to him. He wonders if he’s ever had to ask for help — if it ever hasn’t come easy. Probably not. He has never had cause to doubt himself. No complex feelings tangled up, weighing him down like stones in his pockets.

Chenle is sure that Jisung will love whatever he gives, just like Jisung is sure he is in love with Chenle. Though, for someone who gives so much, Jisung still has problems with it. He can give his love freely, but to give a gift feels like opening his heart up.

Too much, as always.

“If you say so,” Chenle says. He stares at the ceiling for a few minutes longer before squirming and jumping to his feet, sitting up then staring straight at Jisung, who had been zoning out staring at the wall and thinking about Chenle’s first birthday in Korea.

The way they’d smeared cake all over each other’s faces, Chenle’s stilted Korean doing nothing to stem the knowledge that they were made for each other. He’d always been jealous of Jeno and Jaemin. To find Chenle was a restoration in the belief that the universe had a plan for him.

To watch Chenle love someone else was a confirmation that that plan was cruel.

And for Chenle, here, to ask Jisung to sit beside him on the bed — for him to rest his head on his shoulder and sigh, speaking in fragments of sentences while the snow whirled in endless flurries outside the window.

Well, Jisung’s not really sure how that makes him feel, if he’s to be honest, but what else can he do?

Love doesn’t go away. Love cannot be buried. Jisung knows this because he’s tried for so long. Locked it in a jewellery box shaded green and tried to bury it six feet under. Felt the hot knife of desire that cut through him — working apart the matted mess of his veins, reminding him that he wants what he can never have. He wants a wild heart that belongs to someone else.

Chenle invites him to his house for an early dinner three days after Christmas. Their manager doesn’t say anything when he drives Jisung over, and Jisung doesn’t offer. He doesn’t _have_ anything to offer, anyway, but for some reason the drive feels like a funeral march, and he wants to break the suffocating silence. Seoul is still in lockdown, but she’s dressed in wedding dress white, golden lights blurring as Jisung draws a heart on the fogged up window.

It’s lopsided, one chamber bigger than the other, clumsy hands as always. Not so good at anticipating where he’s supposed to be going. Strange trait for a dancer, but there’s always been a separation between the awkward boy in the stage’s shadow and the Jisung who flew. Two halves of the same whole.

Jisung writes Chen + Ji inside of the heart, then wipes it away with his palm.

No-one else is home when Chenle opens the door for Jisung. He hasn’t gotten changed — he’s wearing his Kakao Pajamas, complete with Ryan branded slippers, Gucci hoodie pulled over the top. His hair is messy, like he just woke up, and there’s a voice at the back of Jisung’s head that reminds him that Chenle would look like this if they woke up together. If they lived in a world where Jisung could wake and kiss him in the midst of the night.

So much more, trickling through his hands like sand in the hourglass.

When the door shuts behind Jisung, Chenle walks to the kitchen table, picks up a bag and turns around to shove it at him.

“Hello?” Jisung tries. Chenle grins at him, toothy.

“Go on,” he says, shaking the handles.

“You already got me a gift.”

“I got you a gift you could open in front of the hyungs. This one's for you. Just for you.”

Jisung’s heart picks up. He pulls off his boots and puts them on the rack, then shrugs his coat from his shoulders and hangs it up beside one of Chenle’s mother’s.

“For me? Why?” he tries.

Chenle’s smile softens in response, and Jisung takes the bag from him, their hands brushing, the flicker of warmth causing something to explode through Jisung. Molten gold from a spilled pot, hardening even as it tries to reach out and encase their hands. Immortalise this moment forever.

“You’re almost an adult,” Chenle says. The light is behind him, glowing from all directions like a halo.

“It’s like six months until Coming-of-Age day.”

“Whatever,” Chenle says. “Just open the present.”

Jisung nods. “Do you want me to open it here?”

Chenle shifts his weight from one foot to the other and shrugs. “Wherever.”

Chenle doesn’t buy gifts much. Only customary ones. Birthdays. Christmas. This year all of Dream had exchanged presents in a pseudo Secret Santa. Renjun had gotten Donghyuck a ring, and Donghyuck had joked they were getting married. Donghyuck had bought for Chenle — a new pair of sneakers. Chenle had bought for Jisung — more Golden State Warriors merchandise he’ll only use because every time looks at it his heart fills with a little more fondness, and what is he if not someone who subsists on those kinds of feelings.

(At this point and forever. Always baby Jisung. Always so loved, trying desperately to return it as he was given it.)

Jisung had bought for Jeno. New biking gear.

The bag is huge, but he locates a smaller inside and pulls it out. It’s brilliant red, ‘Cartier’ embossed in gold on the side.

Jewellery?

Jisung’s arms are getting full and he walks over to the table to set everything down, Chenle following him. The larger bag topples and falls to the floor, and Jisung curses under his breath as he tries to catch it and fails.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chenle says, picking up and throwing it aside. “Just—”

“Yeah.”

Brewing anticipation. Inside the bag is a box — the same deep red, the same gold logo. Jisung opens it and pulls out _another_ box, wrapped in white paper and sealed with wax. He tries to open it without breaking the seal, delicately sliding his finger along it, failing miserably as the wax snaps in half.

“Shit,” he curses, to which Chenle laughs.

“I did that, too.”

Another red box is inside. Jisung rips a little of the paper, cringing internally as he gets the box out of the wrapping, turning it over in his hands and trying to work out where to open it. There’s a little gold button and he presses at it, jumping when the lid springs open.

It’s a ring. Warm silver, sitting on black velvet. Jisung takes it out and looks up at Chenle, who digs a hand into his pocket and pulls out a matching ring, which he slips onto his left index finger and holds up.

Jisung looks back at the ring. “What’s this?” he asks.

He picks it up, feeling it in his palm, running his fingertips over the grooves in the surface.

“I wanted something for us,” Chenle says. He swallows, nervousness flashing across his face. “Just for us.”

“Like…” Jisung starts, trailing off. He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to believe it’s even possible — to find a flickering flame of hope and then have it snuffed out.

“Is it too much?” Chenle fidgets, spinning the ring around on his finger.

“It’s not too much.”

“You’re my best friend. I’ve been thinking about it since Doyoung and Taeyong got theirs.”

Jisung’s chest bursts with butterflies, their wings forged of sparks, everything suddenly seeming brighter.

“Are these couple rings?” he asks. He holds the ring up to the light then slips it onto his index finger. It fits perfectly.

Chenle nods, sheepish. “I wanted us to have something special. Renjun gave me your ring size and Minghao helped me pick them out.”

Just like that Jisung’s heart crystallises. Hammer to glass, shattering around him. Minghao. The emotions fluttering over his face must be obvious because Chenle hesitates — but he misreads it.

“Sorry. Umm. If you don’t want it I can return it. I just—”

“No,” Jisung says. He looks up at Chenle and smiles, trying to separate the ugliness from the glow that swells in his heart at the sentiment of it all. Black swill amongst the gold, polluting the gesture. “Don’t return it. Just.. why?”

And Jisung waits. He waits for the answer.

Chenle’s throat bobs. The room is still and he looks like a deer caught in headlights, so utterly out of his element that if Jisung didn’t know him so well he’d say he was fronting. About to make a joke.

 _Ooo, you caught me. You caught me in a lie, Jisung_.

“Why what?” he asks, instead. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and bites his lip, eyes flicking to the ring on Jisung’s finger then back to his face. It’s painfully open — that vulnerability Chenle always denies, that bone deep part of him that yearns for kisses under the cherry blossoms and candlelit dinners.

A bottle of wine, open on the counter. Sitting in the bottom of the glass like someone else’s blood in his mouth.

“Why did you get this for me?”

“I just thought you’d like it.”

Jisung will always want. Jisung will always give.

Sometimes, though. He finds it hard to take.

“What did you get Minghao for his birthday?” Jisung asks, abrupt, the now empty box feeling more and more like a lead weight in his hand.

“What?” Chenle blinks, spinning on the spot to follow Jisung as he walks across the room to pull open the fridge. “Hey, Jisung. What?”

Jisung ignores him and puts the box on the bench then pulls out a bottle of Chamisul, the glass cool and sweaty under his palm, ring clattering against it.

“What did you get him?” Jisung asks. He pulls out two shot glasses from the draw and sets them down, unscrewing the lid of the bottle and filling them both. He glances back at Chenle and tilts his head towards the glasses, and when Chenle doesn’t react he shrugs and downs them, one after the other.

Jisung shudders, full body, the alcohol burning where it goes down, the taste absolutely foul. He’ll never understand how _anyone_ drinks this for fun. He leaves the bottle on the bench with the gift and stares up at Chenle again, insides swirling with unease.

He hates that he even said his name, or that he had to bring it up. It’s not Chenle’s fault, and it certainly isn’t Minghao’s either.

Jisung is the only one to blame. Jealousy is a hideous monster, and he feels its claws rake his insides.

“Jisung — what? Seriously, I can just take it back if it’s that bad. Why are you asking about Minghao? Why are you drinking?”

Jisung waves his hand, shuddering at the bitter aftertaste of the soju still burning in his throat. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to take it back. I’m just confused. You don’t even wear jewellery?”

“I don’t give gifts, either,” Chenle says. He’s not looking Jisung in the eye, but he still shines in some strange way. “But I’ll do it for you.”

Chenle had planned on cooking something but instead they order takeout, sitting knee to knee on the couch and taking advantage of Chenle’s ridiculously large television to watch a movie together. By the time Chenle’s mother comes home the two of them are near horizontal, Chenle curved around Jisung’s back, their hands laying on top of each other’s. Ring beside ring, and Jisung can’t help but be distracted watching the way the glow of the television light plays off the white gold.

Chenle mumbles a hello, as does Jisung, his throat scratchy. Chenle’s mother says something in Chinese, and he can hear the embarrassment in Chenle’s voice when he answers back, something Jisung has always found adorable on him. His fingers curl, stroking back and forth across the back of Jisung’s hand and Jisung presses back against him, a giddiness in his stomach that he’s powerless to do anything about. It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s allowed these moments sometimes. He’s allowed to smile and settle into the warmth.

Just this once, he’s allowed to take.

“I didn’t get Minghao anything,” Chenle says, phone screen lighting up the lines of his face. They’re both stretched on Chenle’s bed together, side by side, fit perfectly into the same space. Chenle is lying on his side, and Jisung on his stomach, and as he talks his eyes flick up to Jisung’s.

Jisung’s heart clenches for a second. “What?”

“You know. In case you were wondering,” Chenle adds. “You did ask.”

Jisung blinks. It still feels like someone is wringing him out, but he feels stabilised in a way. The Earth does not move beneath his feet when Chenle speaks.

“Why not?” Jisung asks.

Chenle huffs, the slightest exclamation. “I told you I’m bad at giving gifts.”

“You just bought me a gift.”

“With other people’s help.”

“Why didn’t you ask for help with him? I’m sure Jun would have helped you out.”

“Why would I?”

“Because you like him?”

Chenle is still staring at him. Something that makes Jisung’s stomach twist and his heartbeat rapid. They’re both still wearing their rings. Jisung’s never seen Chenle wear anything that isn’t from their stylists for longer than an hour, but it’s currently three in the morning, and Chenle hasn’t taken it off. He'd being wearing it when he left for the radio, and he's wearing it now.

Jisung hasn’t taken his off either, save for when he’d gone to the bathroom and slipped it off to examine it in the light. Away from where Chenle was watching, like he might break some unspoken rule by removing it in front of him. Shatter the magic of it all.

“Yeah, I like him,” Chenle says, and it’s slow. “I think he’s a cool dancer. We drink wine together.”

There’s more to the sentence. Chenle taps his finger against the edge of his phone, chewing on the words before he speaks again, and this time it’s quiet, like for the first time in his life Chenle has actually thought about what he’s saying.

“But I don’t _like_ him. Not like that.” He looks away for a second. “Not like how Renjun was, anyway.”

“Oh,” Jisung says.

Chenle glances back at him, and his face breaks into a grin, the moment snapping in two like a geode split down the middle — hard exterior cracking to reveal something precious held within.

“Why, were you jealous?”

“Shut up,” Jisung says, kicking him in the leg. He ducks his head and looks away — half to avoid Chenle’s smirk, but more than anything to avoid revealing the fact that he’s grinning like he’s just won the lottery.

It takes Renjun less than a day to notice the ring — to catch Jisung at the kitchen table and grab his hand, splaying his fingers out against the wood and cursing.

“He got you a _love_ ring?” he asks, incredulous. “What the fuck? This is like 2.3 million. Is he insane?”

Jisung knows. He looked it up online when he got back to the dorm. Chenle had _splurged_ — not that money had ever been an issue for him. Still, he never liked to flex it. Lived humbly enough, in the same five pairs of sweatpants and a hoodie that got rotated out annually. For him to spend this much on anyone was unheard of.

“He got one for himself, too.”

And Renjun stops, letting go of Jisung’s hand and giving him a funny look. “He didn’t mention that.”

“What did he mention?”

His heart flutters again, and in a way Jisung almost feels proud. He harbours no ill will to Renjun, but all the same he’d had to endure a year and a half of Chenle being giddy over him. To sit at the table wearing a ring Chenle had bought for him brings something strange up inside him — a possessiveness of sorts.

“He said he needed your ring size for a gift, so I stole one of the rings from the photoshoot and measured it. He never said he was getting himself one though.” Renjun narrows his eyes and pokes Jisung’s shoulder. “Chenle doesn’t even _wear_ rings.”

Jisung smiles to himself. “I know,” he says. He blows on a spoonful of jjigae and slurps it up. “He doesn’t really give gifts, either.”

Chenle doesn’t take the ring off. Jisung knows because every time Chenle does a live he tunes in to check for it — every viewable radio, every photoshoot. He’s mildly worried Chenle will lose it like he loses everything else he owns, but somehow it’s always there. Even when he posts a picture of him and Minghao, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, his ring is not hidden — it is put on display for all the world to see. Even when Chenle and Felix hang out and open up a spontaneous V LIVE, Felix _makes_ him show it off.

Jealousy rears its ugly head, but Jisung bites down on it. The ring is enough proof for him. Chenle’s words are enough proof for him.

Jisung shows off his proof. He flashes it to the camera every chance he gets — holding it up on V LIVE, doing peace signs at every radio show. Sitting backstage, fiddling with it while their photos are taken.

Jisung always gives, but the ring feels like permission, just once, to take.

On his Coming-of-Age day, it rains. It’s the middle of May, sandwiched between spring showers and the monsoon buckets of summer, and somehow Jisung manages to get the worst of both worlds. The air is cold and wet, concrete gray skies and umbrellas running across the road, and he sits in the SM building with a bouquet of roses and his cheeks on fire, listening to all his hyungs sing him praise. It’s mortifying, but he endures it. All the heartfelt words at how proud they are of him, all the stories about his trainee days. It’s Taeyong who gives him the roses, but it’s Mark who gives him the perfume — a sharp woody scent he thinks Jaemin probably had someone to do with.

“You’re an adult now,” Mark says, grinning at him, lights sparkling in his eyes. “I’m so proud of you, Jisung.”

Jisung just ducks his head, too shy to do anything but mumble a thank you.

For the group photo he’s swept off his feet — literally. Jeno hooks his hands under his armpits, then picks him up. Jisung _squeals_ , but he ends up in Jeno’s arms, bridal style, laughing as they take the photo, looking up to find Chenle grinning down at him. It sets his heart aflame, and he almost falls over as Jeno lowers him to the floor, complaining that Jisung needs to stop hitting the gym because he weighs too much now.

The crowd disperses for the most part — though a fair few people stay. Doyoung pulls him onto his lap and wraps his arms around him as Jisung talks to Ten and Kun, and Jaehyun lingers a little longer to give him a bone crushing hug and a look that says more than words ever could.

Renjun goes back to the 127 dorm with Donghyuck and Mark, pulling Doyoung along with him, and eventually it’s just him, Chenle, Jeno and Jaemin left. Jaemin keeps cutting bite sized pieces off the cake they’d been sharing, and when Jisung catches him with a finger of frosting halfway to his lips he tells him to keep it. In response Jaemin starts cooing at Jisung in his aegyo voice, but he’s silenced by Jeno — who gives Jisung a thumbs up as Chenle roars with laughter beside him.

Despite the rain it’s a good day. He likes spending time with his hyungs, and despite the mortal embarrassment he’s forced to endure by all their stories of the ridiculously stupid things he did as a thirteen year old, he can feel the love that drips from every word. From every ruffle of his hair and hug that they give him. NCT are his family, and Jisung’s not sure there’s any other place he’d rather be than with them right now.

They go back to the Dream dorm — Chenle included — and though they all retreat to their rooms the happiness still lingers. A high that makes Jisung giddy, his cheeks hurting from how much he smiles.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with these,” Jisung says, waving the roses around as they get to his room.

“I don’t know either,” Chenle says. He immediately flops down on Renjun’s bed. “My mum put mine in a vase. Maybe we should do that?”

“I don’t think we even _own_ a vase,” Jisung says, truthfully. At least he’s never seen one. Certainly not one long enough to contain the roses. Maybe he could cut the stems. Or ask Jeno or Jaemin what they did with theirs. It feels like a lifetime ago that they’d been in the same place Jisung was now, and yesterday all at once. Two years gone in a blink of an eye.

Chenle shrugs. “It’s a bit of a silly gift, anyway. At least I think.”

“Says the guy who can’t give gifts.”

There’s a pause for a second, Chenle playing with the edge of the sheets. He knows if Renjun finds out he’s been sitting in his bed (or worse — depending on if Renjun returns home — sleeping in it) he won’t be happy, but Jisung doesn’t care. He’s had to deal with Jaemin’s annoyance at sleeping in his bed enough to know it’s inconsequential — and he likes having Chenle in his room, anyway. That’ll always be worth the scolding.

“Gifts are stupid,” Chenle mumbles. “At least today I can’t fuck it up.”

“You’ve never fucked it up,” Jisung says. His hand instinctively goes for the ring, and Chenle doesn’t miss it.

“So that was the right choice?”

“Yeah, it was.” He smiles at Chenle, and it’s returned, his eyes crinkling slightly. “Though you didn’t get me anything today,” Jisung adds. “I’m almost disappointed.”

“You already got the roses and the perfume,” Chenle says with a shrug. “All that’s left is the kiss.”

He says it so casually, and yet it steals the air from Jisung’s lungs. The perpetual question on the tip of his tongue, what he’s wanted for so long. Just one kiss. Just _once_.

Jisung’s heart hammers in his chest, and he finds Chenle’s expression almost unreadable. Face carefully blank, head tilted to the side, as if he’s inviting Jisung to answer. There is no joke, no laughter. No wisecrack or backpedaling.

Jisung allows himself to take. He allows himself this moment — to hope and to dream.

“Are you offering?”

“Is it a good gift?” Chenle asks.

“Yeah,” Jisung says. He curls his hand into a fist, running his thumb along the cool metal of the ring. “It’s perfect.”

Chenle’s face changes in an instant. Something bright flickering over it. “Do you want it, then?”

And Jisung swallows, heart lodged in his throat, chest tight for an entirely different reason.

“I’ll take anything you’ll give me.”

Chenle sits up, entirely too casual for it to be deliberate. At least that’s what Jisung wants to believe — the little shard of hope he’ll hold onto. Chenle pats the sheets next to him and Jisung’s legs wobble like a newborn fawn as he walks over to sit down beside him, breath sharp and rapid.

“Yeah?” Chenle asks, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips, eyes on Jisung’s mouth for a second before he looks back up to meet his eyes. He reaches out and fits a palm against his cheek and Jisung nods, eyes fluttering shut, willing this all to be true.

“You really did never take it off, huh?” Chenle says, elbow deep in the freezer, fishing for the last Melona bar. Even cast in the stark white fluorescent lights of the otherwise empty CU he looks good, and Jisung can’t stop staring at him. His mouth is glossy from chapstick and every time Jisung looks at it he has to fight the instinct to trace his fingers over his own lips, like he’s trying to memorise what it felt like to have Chenle kiss him.

“What?”

“The ring,” Chenle says, tilting his head and pulling out an ice encrusted popsicle like it's a prize.

“Oh.” Jisung glances down, splaying out his fingers so it stands out. “No? Why would I?”

Chenle shrugs. He brushes the ice off the wrapper and shuffles over to the iced coffee section. “Renjun and Jaemin didn’t exactly wear their bracelets for long. I thought you might not either.”

“How do you know I don’t only wear it for you?” Jisung teases, and Chenle winces a little.

“Umm,” he says, picking up a can of coffee, turning it over then placing it back on the shelf. “I might have asked Renjun if you were wearing it around the dorm. Just to make sure that you liked it. You were so hesitant about it when I gave it to you, I didn’t want you to wear it out of obligation.”

Jisung frowns, glancing down at the brightly coloured wrappers through the fogged up freezer glass, then back up at where Chenle is tapping his fingers against the fridge door. “I wasn’t hesitant about the ring,” he says. “I just didn’t get why you were buying me things. The biggest thing you’ve bought me without a reason before is dinner.”

Chenle straightens up and turns to him, eyebrows slightly raised, cup of coffee in hand. “Yeah?”

“You asked for help, too. You don’t do that for me.”

“I told you I wanted it to be special.”

Jisung follows him through the narrow aisles of the convenience store, placing his packet of candy on the counter alongside Chenle’s items. The cashier rings them up without looking at their faces, and Jisung chews on the words, picking at a thread on the inside of his hoodie pocket. He thanks Chenle for paying and Chenle shrugs, sticking his coffee in his jacket pocket and unwrapping his Melona bar, the ice cream already in his mouth as he pushes open the door and steps out into the cool night.

“Is that what this is all about?” Chenle asks. There are no stars in the sky but the way the lights of the CU sign reflect in his eyes look like a galaxy, anyway. Full of life, lips rosy where he licks at his ice cream. “You think I don’t think you’re special?”

“Not that,” Jisung says. “You just spent so much time talking about other people I wasn’t sure why you were thinking about me. It sounded like you really liked Minghao.”

“You keep bringing him up,” Chenle says. They pass into a darker part of the alley, leaving the glow of the streetlights behind, the only light the ambience from a vending machine leaning against a brick wall.

“You were talking about him so much! You made me listen to Moonwalker so many times I thought I was going to start singing it in my sleep.”

“Seventeen are cool,” Chenle says. "He's cool. It's different. He's like a big brother to me."

"I guess I thought when you moved on from Felix…" Jisung starts, but Chenle cuts him off.

"Jisung," he says, and he sounds a little impatient. "I didn't have a crush on Felix, either."

The statement is such a shock that Jisung completely misses the fact Chenle has stopped walking. He probably would have gone on without him if not for the tug on the back of his hoodie that yanks him into the shadows.

He makes a noise of bewilderment, and stops, staring at Chenle. It’s dark, and he’s glad he didn’t leave his glasses back at the dorm, because otherwise he would be a blur in the gloom right now. As it is he’s difficult to make out — all angles, pale skin and the whites of his eyes.

Something strange swirls in him.

“Jisung.”

“What?”

Chenle purses his lips, looks left to right, and before Jisung can even process it he’s kissing him. His lips are cold and Jisung breathes sharply, hands flying up to grip at Chenle’s arms, holding him close even as he pulls away.

And this makes no sense, either. It’s still Coming-of-Age day, he supposes, but Chenle had already given him his kiss.

Multiple kisses, actually. A chaste one, then another, and another, blurring to the point Jisung had stopped counting. Maybe one long extended kiss, if he’s to spin the story. His cheeks had been flushed and hot at the end of it. and when he’d pulled away Chenle had grinned at him and told him happy adulthood.

Like that was what you said after kissing your best friend for ten minutes.

“Why are you kissing me?” Jisung asks, because this makes even _less_ sense. He thinks for a second then amends himself. “Why are you kissing me in _public_?”

“You’re an idiot,” Chenle says. “Do you even use your big head for anything?” He raps on the side of Jisung’s skull with his knuckles, then brings his Melona up to his lips again.

Jisung's head spins round and round like a reel of film in an old school movie projector. A thousand images flickering past, and how could he ever make sense of them?

“You’re being weird,” Jisung says, trying to ignore the candle wick trail of warmth in his stomach at the softness of Chenle's lips.

God, he could get used to that. Just for a heartbeat he imagines it — a stolen kiss here and there, the way Renjun and Donghyuck did. Over dinner, in the morning, in the dressing room when they thought no-one was watching.

"I didn't have a crush on them," Chenle says, and his voice is low, rough, the way it is when he's just woken up and he's shuffling around with puffy eyes and all the appearance of the walking dead, "because I like _you_."

Jisung almost drops the candy in his hand. Something hot and thick flows through the once empty chambers of his heart and he chokes, bewildered.

"Idiot," Chenle repeats. He grabs Jisung's wrist and pulls him along again, and Jisung follows.

Jisung wants.

When the front door of the dorm shuts behind him and Chenle is done taking off his sneakers, Jisung cups Chenle's face in his hands and kisses him, and he discovers that Chenle has wanted, too.

Jisung has given. Jisung is not greedy — not at his core. Jisung is selfless. But when he pulls back and sees Chenle’s smile, his eyes soft as the morning sunrise, Jisung knows he gets this all to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> [chenle and jisung's couple rings](https://www.cartier.com/en-us/collections/jewelry/collections/love/love-rings/b4084700-love-ring.html)


End file.
